Thursday, April 18, 2013

"most disappointing": House Ways and Means budget update

Late yesterday, we received this update from Superintendent Boone regarding the FY14 House Ways and Means budget. As expected, the news isn't good. As posted last week, the House budget does not adopted the Governor's proposed increases to Chapter 70 on preschool enrollment, nor does it include the additional special education funds.
This budget also, due to a decline in lottery funds, cuts the local aid to the city, which will change the city's piece of funding.
House Ways and Means also does not fully fund charter school reimbursement; it comes in at 68.6% of what regulations require, less that what the Governor's proposed budget included.
The circuit breaker and kindergarten grant are essentially level funded; McKinney-Vento transportation is funded at the reduced FY13 amount (and remember, that goes into the city's general fund; while the schools pay for it, it has not been appropriated to the schools as a reimbursement).

This is the budget on which the WPS FY14 budget, due out in a few weeks, will be based.

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